


Leave Me On My Knees

by badgirlcarly



Category: Thunderheart (1992)
Genre: Anger, Anger Management, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Personal Growth, Post-Canon, Racist Language, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 15:00:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21078713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgirlcarly/pseuds/badgirlcarly
Summary: What happens after Ray leaves the rez. (He comes back.)Title from Florence + the Machine's "Mother." Written for thepromptbitter, sharp, revenge.





	Leave Me On My Knees

  
The word _humiliation_ comes from a Latin word referring to the ground. The implication is that something is so lowly as to be on the ground, beneath one's feet. To humiliate is to bring one down to earth. 

Interestingly, in English _humus_, a word from the same root, is an element of soil necessary for growth. 

***

Walter spanks him. Ray has never had a hand taken to him, but Walter will slide him over his knee or bend him over a piece of furniture and light into his ass, should the occasion warrant it. It's not a game. It's not one light slap; Walter will spank him for long minutes, and hard. Ray hates it. At first, he struggles, but eventually he just relents, behaves. It's awful, but he recognizes that it's truly good for him. It reins him in, calms and centers him, which he needs. 

Ray doesn't think of himself as a kid, but when he's over Walter's lap, crying from the pain and humiliation of being punished like a naughty child, he realizes how young he is, how undisciplined and raw. 

Some days it feels like he doesn't know himself at all. 

***

Ray doesn't stay away long. He finishes things up with DC and talks to some news outlets about Maggie, and then finds himself, like he's sleepwalking, standing on Walter's porch waiting to be let in. 

It happens fast after that. The door isn't even closed all the way and they're fucking against it, Ray's hands in Walter's hair and Walter's teeth on his neck. 

***

Ray gets in fights. He's been pushed around a lot in his life, and he's done with it. Walter sits him down at the kitchen table and uses burning, sharp smelling alcohol to clean Ray's cuts and bruises, and he bandages him and lectures him. Ray sits still through it all, bitter dread growing in his belly and pushing up his throat. He knows what comes next. Walter directs him, and Ray goes to Walter's closet to pick out a belt. Then he strips and lays facedown on the bed, and waits for the first burning stripe to lash across his naked ass and thighs. 

He cries. He always cries. 

***

They are in bed at the end of a long day. They went at it a while, and this might just be an interlude, that kind of lying lazy, curled up against each other. 

Walter is on his back, and Ray is beside him on his side, perched up on one elbow. He studies the Sun Dance scars on Walter's chest, traces their uneven edges with his fingertips. It's already become habit; he does it at night when he's looking for sleep. 

"I don't know why you put up with me," Ray says. 

Walter chuckles. He fits the joint of Ray's jaw into his palm, his thumb running over Ray's cheekbone. 

"I wouldn't trade you for simple, honey. Usually the things in life worth doing, they don't come easy." 

Ray narrows his eyes. "So you just want me cuz I'm _worth doing_?" 

Walter shakes his head, but he's laughing. "Smartass," he says, and pulls him down for a kiss. 

***

Walter takes him to dinner in a dusty town twenty minutes off the rez. There's a sign on the front of the restaurant, faded and rusted with time and the elements, that reads, NO DOGS OR INDIANS. 

They slip into a booth. Ray's blood is up. "Sometimes I can't understand why you don't want revenge. All of you." 

"All of _us_," Walter says. "You ever see a man happy with his revenge?" 

"No," Ray says softly. He can't quite hold Walter's gaze, but Walter doesn't force him. He doesn't look away, though, either. 

"It's poison, Ray. The sooner you forget about it, the better." Ray doesn't say anything. Walter presses. "You know how you get poison out?" 

"Death?" He's not being difficult. He can't see another way. 

Walter takes his hand. "No, Ray. You cut into the wound, and you suck the poison out. It's the first part that's hard. That's all." Ray looks at him, hopeful. Walter smiles at him. "You're almost through it, _čhaŋté skúya_." 

Ray's brow creases. "What's that mean?" 

Walter just laughs. 

***

Ray wakes up one morning to find he's not angry anymore. He can't count the hours of his life he's held onto that rage. It's clarifying, a clean, driving force. 

It's no way to live. 

Walter is still asleep. Ray watches the sun come up through the gap in the curtains, a new day, and then he settles back down and waits for Walter to wake up.  



End file.
